Day 2, part 2

OH MY WORD, we just bought a car. It's a '90 Toyota Camry, I think dark blue or black (it was dark outside) with some lovely silver patches where the paint is gone. We found it on Craigslist and called the guy, and he had to sell it TODAY, so we weren't going to even look at it, but he said he'd bring it over, and one of the YWAM guys across the street said he'd take a look at it, so after we checked it out and discovered everything was working just fine, we agreed to buy it because it was pretty darn cheap and we’ve been looking at a lot of cars, and then we went back to Haiku with the owner, up into the pitch black, eerie, forested foothills of Haiku, got the title, paid the $900, and found our way home (amazingly without getting lost).

I know many of you—especially my parents—are biting your fingernails at the naivety of two young girls on their own in Maui, but consider some things:

-This whole move is all about the adventure in the first place.
-If we don’t dive in, make mistakes, and learn the hard way, what’s life about?
-We had just as much chance of getting a crappy car even if we had paid more for it, with all the knowledge we have about buying cars.
-We apparently live across the street from a houseful of young guys who know a lot about fixing cars.
-If the car fails us, we will have each lost $450…. Quite a little handful, but not TOO bad. And there are tons of other cars for sale out there.
-We had a guy who’s good with cars tell us if it were him, he’d definitely go ahead and buy it.
-It’s common right now for people to be leaving the island TOMORROW and needing to sell their cars, so it’s not fishy or anything. Oh, plus, this guy started it at $1300 and had to cut it way down because he's leaving tomorrow, duh, so we at least know it's worth a little more.
-The guy we bought it from has a lot of experience buying and selling cars in Hawaii, and he wouldn’t have bought it for himself if he didn’t think it was good and he could resell it.
-We have a car. Period. Check.

We did other things today, too. We met with Retha in the morning and got more of an overview of the job, saw the potential rooms we could be living in. We also got a warning from other sources that past people who’ve worked for this guy who owns the condos have had serious issues with how things are run, so we’ll have to maybe talk to some housekeeping people who’ve quit. Then we went to Kihei and got some stuff at Safeway, and I filled out an application at the Maui Dive Shop. Then we drove to Haiku, which is up past Paia a few miles, and checked out another car, being sold by this kid who’s been on the island four months and is leaving because he was lonely and didn’t meet any chicks. I hope Jeanie and I make it longer than four months. He knew less about his car than we did, so we said no thanks. Then we made sandwiches and went to the beach (finally!). It was overcast today, but it was still amazing to sit by the ocean!

I’ve definitely had my waves of insanity today. This morning, after my little Kenya reminiscing, I had a rush of terror at all the things we’re trying to accomplish, and the thought of trying to make new friends (why, when I have so many at home?), and I was ready to pack up and head back to MN. Then I was like, what the heck, this is the first full day, I can’t listen to my crazy emotions, things will work out. I really can’t think about everything—it’s too much for a brain to take in. It's better to look back--I’m surprised and pleased by the massive amounts of things we’ve accomplished. Wow. And the number of people we’ve met without being like, “OK, we have to make friends now.” Interesting people. :)